


How Tarzan Got His Name

by AtomMudman



Category: Tarzan - Edgar Rice Burroughs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:07:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29688588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtomMudman/pseuds/AtomMudman
Summary: Western actor Ken Maynard rose to cinematic fame with the aid of his “Wonder Horse” Tarzan. This story asks the question: what if Maynard was inspired to name his horse after the real Tarzan—John Clayton, Lord Greystoke? In this story we learn where Tarzan got his name—when Maynard, or a version of him, shares an adventure with Edgar Rice Burroughs' jungle lord...





	1. Chapter 1

It was the summer of 1924, and all the heat of the world seemed centered on this open field in Kenya. The American named Ken wiped off his brow and whispered quiet gratitude for the broad-brimmed white hat which shielded his face from the sun. It wasn't enough, though—had to be at least ninety degrees in the shade. If Ken wasn't used to the scorching heat of the American West, he'd have fainted from exhaustion by now. He knew it wasn't no good to come out here alone, but Ken was a man who preferred to handle his own business, without burdening others. He had no idea if he'd be able to achieve what he came out to do, and there wasn't any reason for anyone else to pay the price if this all turned out to be a lot of foolishness. He just hoped he was close to his destination.

Ken found himself wishing again that he had a horse. The ground here was too rugged for automobiles but a good horse could handle it just fine. The issue was that he had come here in _search_ of a horse, and the horses he was looking to pick from didn't take too kindly to those outside their herd. It made the already-elusive equines harder to track, for once they caught wind of a foreign horse they ran away, finding themselves a place to hide. Not like they were cowards or anything—but they had long known the ways of man and learned to distrust them. Ken knew of man's treachery too, and so he understood where they were coming from.

The Westerner squinted now as he peered down the expanse of the plain. No lions here, just gazelles and antelope, living in the blissful absence of predators. The air sang with the music of insects, and shimmered in the rich heat. It was a peaceful scene, but Ken was wondering if there was something wrong with him—he was sure he was having a heat-hallucination. For the peace of the scene ahead of him was disrupted by the weird presence of a nearly-naked white man with dark hair, who stared at him with piercing gray eyes from the branches of one of the tall savanna trees.

Ken refused to accept the reality of this image until he was up close to the tree. When he was close enough to touch the trunk, the image of the man still didn't fade, and those gray eyes kept watching him as Ken stared up at him.

“You shouldn't be out here,” said the strange man gruffly. “A pack that small can't possibly contain enough water for you to get to the nearest settlement. You've come out here to die.”

Ken was unshaken. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“I am called Tarzan.” The man didn't ask Ken his name, as if such a thing was below him.

“Tarzan, huh? Well, if it's death to be out here, why don't you lend me a hand?”

The man called Tarzan raised his eyebrow, and said, “What is it you're doing that makes saving your life worth my time?”

“I'll be glad to tell you, mister, if you tell me where to find water. If my having water is such a concern of yours.”

“You ask an indulgence of me, when it is your foolishness that has brought you out here.” Ken realized there was a faint smile on Tarzan's lips, as if something about this situation amused him.

“Now there's no sense mocking me,” was his response. “I ain't afraid of no heatstroke, but you're acting like you know where fresh water is. Now, if that's true, I'd like you stop acting so damn foolish yourself, and lead me to it.”

At once Tarzan's face soured. “I don't like Americans telling me what to do,” he growled. “Perhaps a fiery tongue like yours _needs_ a little water. Follow me.”

Ken was taken aback as the man jumped down from the tree—he descended with the grace of a great ape. He could see now that this man was like an ape in human form, an uncanny hybrid. But Ken was a tough man, and he didn't let this realization keep him rattled. He kept his lips shut. After a moment, the man trekked out before him and started leading him west.

At once Ken tried to assess his strange host. He reasoned that Tarzan was a man of few words, and excess chatter would quickly irritate him. He probably lived in the area—his clothes implied he lived off the land—but how had he come to do so? He spoke English, with something of an English accent. To Ken he put off the air of lordliness, as if he was used to getting his way. Whether that indicated a high birth or an unregulated youth was hard to determine.

It wasn't long before they came across a pool of clean-looking water. Ken knew there could be crocodiles in there so he tread carefully. Tarzan stood behind him, watching him drink and refill his canteens.

When Ken finished up, he turned back and grinned widely. “Much obliged, Mr. Tarzan. I'll be on my way now—I still got a long journey ahead of me.”

“Where are you heading?”

Ken was suspicious—he didn't want to get a talking-to about the Valley of the Horses, and how it wasn't real. Not from this man. He would be sterner than Ken deserved.

“Oh, just down south a-ways,” he said, trying to deflect. “Say, what were you doing before I came across you?”

“I was on my way back to my home, to rendezvous with my wife and son.”  
  


This raised more questions in Ken's mind, but he kept them to himself. Tarzan's patience lapsed again, and he said, “What business takes you south?”  
  


Ken knew there was no point in lying to a man like this Tarzan. He took a deep breath before speaking.

“I'm looking for the Valley of the Horses. I'm hoping to secure one of the horses that lives there as a mount.”

Tarzan said, “You realize of course—if such a Valley existed—that your words constitute an intention to poach?”

“Is it poaching if the horses think like people, though?” Ken asked. “There are rumors about the horses of that Valley. They say if they do bond with a human it's the deepest friendship either of them will ever know. They're smart, but they crave riders by instinct.”

“Such lore sounds greatly convenient to poachers,” Tarzan said.

“I swear to you that if I find the Valley, I'll never reveal the secret to anyone,” said Ken. Then he looked aside. “Actually, I made some promises to some friends back home. Not a lot of friends, mind, or friends with selfish interests! Fellow adventurers, who have great moral compasses. We want to work with these horses, if they exist, to help clean up the leftover Wildness of the Wild West.”

Tarzan raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You want to use intelligent horses to fight crime in the United States?”

“Yes. If they're willing to join us.”

That strange, thin smile came upon Tarzan's face then. Ken realized he must have sounded completely mad.

“You realize, of course, that this Valley likely doesn't exist?”

“You seem to know this land well, Mr. Tarzan. I'm sure I can take your word.”

But Tarzan's gray eyes flashed. “I said that it 'likely' doesn't exist. I've been curious about this Valley for some time. In my experience, human-like horses are less impossible than one might think.”

  
“Sounds like you have some experience with human-like animals,” Ken said then.

“I use the term 'human-like' for your convenience. I believe the intelligence of animals is insulted by a comparison to that of humans.”

Ken laughed at that, though he knew Tarzan was dead serious.

“If you believe you know where the Valley is located,” the strange man said, “then I will join you in traveling there.”

“I trust my map,” Ken replied. “It'll be a pleasure having you as a walking companion, Tarzan.”

If Tarzan felt similarly pleased by his own choice of comrade, he did not say.

* * *

As they walked, passing into the embrace of the Kenyan jungle, Tarzan asked Ken what he knew about the Valley of the Horses. Ken suspected the mysterious man already knew all there was to know about the elusive locale, but he indulged him anyway.

“They say the horses what live there are descended from a breed from Greece,” he began, “specifically from Thrace. They were the mares kept by a king named Diomedes. He raised them to eat people. Their ferocity was almost unmatched—but one day, the mares devoured Abderus, a friend of Hercules.”

“In most versions of the legend, Abderus was Hercules' lover,” Tarzan interrupted.

“Err...yes,” Ken said, ignoring the smug look on Tarzan's face. “Well, anyway, Hercules fed Diomedes to his own horses, and, uh...that was that. Well, except for their descendants. One of them was Alexander's horse, Bucephalus—said to be the smartest horse who ever lived.”

Tarzan stifled a laugh over Ken's pronunciation of the Greek names: “Dee-omma-deez” and “Byoo-suh-fellas.” This jarred loose something in Tarzan's memory—his recent trip to Paris with Jane, when he had consented to read _Gulliver's Travels_. The jungle lord had derived enjoyment from Swift's comically bleak view of humanity. He recalled now that the last land Gulliver visited in the book was that of the Houyhnhnms—a race of intelligent horses who commanded a race of subservient human-like creatures called—Yahoos—

Tarzan stopped. A strange spoor crossed into the air—faint, but obvious. It smelled human, and it wasn't any smell Ken was letting off. Nor did it match the scent of any of the local people who lived in this area. His gray eyes looked around cautiously—the greenery around them could hide anything. But there wasn't a trace of fear in the jungle lord's body. He sniffed at the air, to Ken's confusion, until at last he pinpointed where the smell was coming from. Tarzan stepped forward, urging Ken back, and drew the bright silver blade which had once been his father's. He peeled down the shrubbery in front of him, and at once a form revealed itself to him.

The creature before him was a Yahoo. It had to be, for he had encountered no other such creature in Africa. Even the Mangani who raised him were prettier than this. The Yahoo was a pale human-like thing towering about nine feet tall—bear-like fur covered his body save for his bald head. His eyes were wide and mad with hunger, and thick tusks protruded from his upper lip. His pronounced brow made him look like the traditional illustrations of cavemen. Neither Ken nor Tarzan knew that a drawing of this creature, or rather its Australian cousin, had appeared in an issue of the  _Sydney Sun_ twelve years prior, rendered by Will Donald from an account by Charles Harper. A population of Yahoos known among Aboriginal people as Yowies had lived on the Australian mainland for many centuries—the descendants of escapees from Houyhnhnm Land.

None of this mattered in the moment. At once, the Yahoo let out a roar and dove towards Tarzan. Tarzan let out a cry and threw himself into the fray. He caught the giant creature in his grip and wrestled him onto the ground.

Their battle was a brutal one—for they were both brutes. Tarzan spoke and walked and thought like a man, but Ken understood now that he truly was an ape in a man's body—for he fought like an ape, and that crowded out all other human resemblance. He had said he had a wife and son, and Ken wondered how they lived with him. Perhaps they were as wild as he. He watched as dust blended to mud beneath their feet; their clutching bodies pulled and tore the plants around them, sending a storm of water droplets into the air. Their voices were low as they tugged at each others' joints, their fingers seeking weak spots to tear open. In Tarzan's hand was his knife—he needed only to let it loose. But the growling Yahoo kept his wrist pinned in such a way that he couldn't use it.

Instead, Tarzan turned to other blades, which were a part of him: his teeth. The full force of his jaws sank deep into the Yahoo's throat. The hot blood left him half-disgusted, half-excited. He threw the creature down and prepared to lay in the kill. His eyes shot up and he saw that Ken held a revolver in his hand. Tarzan's gray eyes locked onto his, silently commanding him not to interfere. Then, the jungle lord plunged his father's knife into the Yahoo's heart.

It was then that Ken heard for the first time the victory cry of the bull ape.

Tarzan climbed off of the corpse, and steadied himself before turning back to Ken. For a moment, the Westerner kept his gun out—as if he feared that the strange man's bloodlust would turn on him next. But in this instance, Tarzan controlled himself. He cleaned the Yahoo's blood off his blade, and said:

“It seems the history of the Valley of the Horses is more complicated than we thought.”

* * *

Tarzan and Ken continued down the trail, and Tarzan told Ken about what he knew of the Houyhnhnms. He theorized that the Mares of Diomedes must have become the Houyhnhmns somehow and migrated to their island in Australia, only to loop back west to the east coast of Kenya. Here they degenerated back into ordinary horses—if unusually intelligent ones. They were still accompanied by their Yahoo servants, who know must guard the Valley.

“That all makes sense to me,” Ken said. “Kinda wish I'd been _warned_ though.”

“Warned?” asked Tarzan, in a suspicious tone.

Ken paused a moment before speaking. “Well, I was hesitant to tell you—but I know about the Valley of the Horses on account of a fellow cowboy having made it out here first.”

“It would have been best to tell me,” snarled Tarzan. “Who was this man?”

“Tom, who calls his horse Tony. He's a man of the Old West, like me...”

“Tom who?”

Ken shrugged.

“That's just the thing, Mr. Tarzan. He's _just_ Tom—like how I'm _just_ Ken. He and I, we're sorta like Old West legends, who are just starting to get our adventures turned into movies. We've found some actors to play us, who are pretty much our doubles—even got the same names. Tom's played by Tom, and I'm played by Ken. We started a whole _trend_ of getting us old cowboys played by people who are pretty much just like us—Gene and Roy have gotten in on it too. These actors, they'll ride our horses—we'll share them with 'em. They'll pretty much _be_ us, even though some of us started our adventures around Civil War times and thereabouts...”

“What are you telling me?” asked Tarzan skeptically. “How old are you?”

“I can't tell. None of the folks like me can...”

Tarzan thought back twelve years, to when he had accepted an ancient witch-doctor's offer to become immortal. Over a decade later, he was roughly in the same shape, and his appearance hadn't changed. It was still too early to tell if the process had worked, so he was still skeptical about the idea of immortality. It seemed likely that this Ken was, as he'd previously speculated, simply insane.

But then, so was he, he realized with a smirk. The Valley of the Horses could be quite dangerous if they came across any other Yahoos. His curiosity was piqued, and he couldn't stop now. 

They continued their journey through the jungle, and Ken was suddenly thankful for the extra water Tarzan had helped him find. Gradually, the trees began to thin around them. The ground shifted downward, and eventually they came within sight of an expansive dale. This had to be the Valley they sought—unless there was some other reason that this place was full of some of the most beautiful horses either man had ever seen.

The horses seemed unaware of their presence, but they did move softly; Tarzan urged Ken to have his gun at the ready. “Those creatures are nearby. Their odor is quite pungent.”

“Y'know, I have to wonder if there's even more to them Houyhnhnms than we thought,” Ken said. “Thinking about that Yahoo feller reminded me of a country singer back home named Hank Johnson. He kinda looks a bit like one of them. Rumors are he's trying to get his son into singing... _and_ politics. Lethal mix in my mind.” 

They were getting close to the horses now, and still went unnoticed. Ken went on: “Some of these horses are Arabians. A desert nomad I know named Sheikh Suleiman used to sell specimens quite like them.”

Tarzan, half-exasperated, raised a hand for him to be silent. The strength of the Yahoo spoor in the air was growing by the moment, and his senses were telling him, in their own way, that there were a great many of the creatures en route. His steely eyes now observed that the horses were aware of them—they acted like they weren't watching, but Tarzan knew better. Ken had ruined their stealth. Tarzan let his muscles tense up, as he prepared for the trap to spring.

At once, the strange wonder horses let out a singular, collective neigh, and the trees split open. Tarzan shouted out a war-cry, and immediately threw himself into battle.

The pale giants were all around them. Their long, spidery fingers reached for the intruders, seeking to tear them limb from limb; a chorus of their growls rumbled through the air. Tarzan was undeterred. His father's blade lashed out like the silver scythe of the Grim Reaper, as lethal as Death itself. The creatures were surprised, for they had never faced a man like Tarzan before—they had fought fast men and strong men, but never one as fast and strong as he. Their numbers meant nothing.

But Tarzan didn't draw all the Yahoos to him. Some remained for Ken. He knew he could trust his six-gun—it served him well his life. Yet he knew it was much more than a gun and sharp eye that won fights. Normally he preferred to tussle with his foes, the way Tarzan was; he felt half-cowardly, using bullets to defend himself. But he considered that Tarzan's arms were about the size of his whole body. He didn't have the jungle lord's advantages. So hot lead it was.

Tarzan took the lives of three of the creatures before he broke a sweat. He stood atop them as the others surged at him, eager to avenge their dead. Tarzan met their fury with his own, but he couldn't stop a sea of arms from restraining him. He broke their grip, at least at first, but they were on top of him then. They had him pinned. He had no choice but to give in to their attacks—let them build arrogance and an advantage. Just as they thought they had him, he let all his strength surge out. He knocked them aside like ragdolls, and at once he broke free for higher ground, daring them to pursue him.

Ken still held his own. His gun continued to keep the approaching hominids at bay. But this fight suddenly seemed so small to him. He'd come here with a singular goal—to ride one of the steeds of the Valley of the Horses. He was sure he hadn't come all this way for nothing. Now, the living treasure he desired seemed so close. He pushed himself forward, and advanced through the Valley's guardians into the dale itself. He had seen a beautiful white colt which he had decided to make his own. As soon as there was a free path through the Yahoos, he sprinted for the colt, whose eyes glared at him with a mixture of malice and admiration.

Tarzan, meanwhile, saw that his enemies were starting to retreat. They valued their lives more than their duty to the Houyhnhnms' descendants. Tarzan didn't pause to watch the Yahoos retreat, but instead focused on subduing those whose courage held out. These were the oldest, or at least, the most heavily scarred. They had brought down many who threatened the peace of their masters, and fear would not break them. But something else might.

The jungle lord respected the scars of the Yahoos, who so reminded him of the great apes who had raised him. Tarzan called out in the Mangani tongue, to see if the tusk-faced creatures before him reacted. To his faint surprise they did. He frowned—he wondered how they could understand the language of the ones who had raised him, who lived many hundreds of miles away from their island home. But there was no time to find out. He had to try to earn the respect of these aged Yahoos and convince them to back down.

As Tarzan tried to speak to the creatures, Ken found his way to the white colt. The colt reared back when he saw him, but Ken was undeterred. He grabbed onto the beast's neck and tried to haul himself up onto its back. The horse reared again, but Ken's arms were strong. With a jerk of motion he pulled himself up and kicked his leg over the horse's back. It bucked him off, sending him onto the dirt—he still refused to give up. Once he was on his feet he tried again.

The Yahoos now spoke to Tarzan in Mangani, telling him, in a very rough sense, that they would never break their oaths to the horses. They would kill him and the other man and devour their remains. Tarzan told him, so be it—it would be a fight to the death. Soaked in blood, both the Yahoos' and his own, he rushed back at the giants, to make an end of this.

But even as Tarzan fought, Ken worked his way onto the colt's back again. It tried to buck him one last time but he held on tight. He knew how to handle a wild mustang. Technically, this horse couldn't be considered a mustang, since it didn't come from the feral Spanish horses of the American West—but it didn't matter. A wild horse was a wild horse, and this was the wildest he'd ever faced. That's why he wanted it. A horse like this would grow up to be the strongest damn horse in the world.

He let his strength bond with the horse's. Through strength they'd become as one.

Tarzan had slain two more of the beast-men, when they turned away from him with a howl. More Yahoos had come out of the trees to join the attack, but now they looked to face the broad valley they defended. In the middle, surrounded by an orbiting ring of horses, was Ken. He sat atop the white colt he had tried to mount, which now reared back—not to throw him off, but to celebrate the forging of a new bond.

The Yahoos bowed, knowing that now the strangers fit into the world of their masters. That was the law of the horses—any who could mount them were to go unharmed. They would let Ken ride out with his new mount, to face whatever adventures awaited them.

And Ken had an inkling of what he was gonna name the horse.

* * *

Twenty-one years later, Tarzan—the man, not the horse—heard of the final fate of the man named Ken. Jane read about him in the newspaper and remembered what her husband had said about him when he'd finally gotten home all those years back. Tarzan explained to her that he knew all about how Ken lived his life. And he told her that once upon a time he'd had a chance to give him a bloody death.

Once Ken got his movie career off the ground he turned out to be a drunken mess. His acting was unfocused, he fought with his fellow actors, and worst of all, he took his rage out on the horse, Tarzan. He'd gone all that way for his horse, and he spent most of its life  _hurting_ it. Tarzan the horse died in 1940, at the age of 17. Tarzan the man knew that horses could live for a considerably longer span than that.

The truth was that Tarzan  _would_ have died in 1940 if his namesake hadn't rescued him and brought him to Africa. He had passed just last year. Jane and the real Tarzan had hoped he would have lived longer, but they knew he was thankful for those last four years they gave him. And while he lived, he and the man he'd been named for shared a few adventures together. Indeed Tarzan looked on him nearly the same as he did Jad-bal-ja.

When Tarzan stole the horse from Ken, he had a chance to take revenge on him for what he did. But he knew that Ken's movie career would collapse without his wonder horse. So he allowed that to happen. In early 1944 Ken ran out of movie options.

When he realized he was locked out of Hollywood, Ken tried his hand at running a carnival, but that eventually went bankrupt—he couldn't compete with Blake's Carnival, a traveling outfit popular in the region. Against advisement, he bought the land he had rented for the carnival, and turned it into a campground. According to a huckster named Hawks, a number of youths had gone missing in the area shortly after the camp's opening, and eventually the local law enforcement discovered the perpetrators to be specimens of the mythical ape known as Bigfoot. Ken tried to defend the convenience store that served as the campground's main office, but one of the creatures killed him. Hawks claimed that the Bigfoot were eventually rounded up and destroyed by the police.

Tarzan doubted the account Hawks gave the media, mostly because it was clear he was looking to make a movie based on his version of events. But in truth, the local police may have been in on Hawks' lie, because according to other sources, Ken's convenience store was a front for a local pederast ring.

Now Tarzan stood where the Valley of the Horses had once existed. Now, it was empty. The victim of another lie.

Ken had said he had only “a few” friends interested in the horses, whom he promised he would swear to secrecy. But it was clear many men had come here, and taken the horses until none remained. At the jungle lord's feet was a carpet of bullet-riddled skeletons, from the Yahoos which once guarded this place.

Tarzan allowed himself a bitter grin. He knew of course that it was not “Bigfoot” who had caught up with and slain the man named Ken. Some of the Yahoos had followed him back to America—and carried out their own justice.

Nature found its way to accomplish such ends, most of the time. Tarzan did not pause to consider the possibility of a higher force—he was not one to believe that life had a plan, or a design. But it was nonetheless one of Nature's own laws that violence unto Nature would be revisited upon the perpetrator.

But the jungle lord also knew that that would not undo the past, nor resurrect the dead.

**Finis**


	2. Notes

A few notes on this story, explaining some references which may be more obscure than others:

  * “Tom,” “Gene,” and “Roy” are cowboy actors Tom Mix, Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers—they often played characters sharing their first names at least, if not fictionalized versions of themselves. All had Wonder Horses: Tony, Champion, and Trigger, respectively.

  * Hank Johnson is the father of the country singer-turned-Presidential candidate of the same name from H.G. Lewis' film _The Year of the Yahoo!_ (1971)

  * Sheikh Suleiman is the horse trader from the Hopalong Cassidy Western _Outlaws of the Desert_ (1941)

  * Blake's Carnival is the traveling circus from the film noir _Girl on the Run_ (1953)

  * The circumstances of Ken's death represent the possible “true events” behind the film _Bigfoot_ (1970)

  * The pederast ring based out of Ken's campground was inspired by the movie _The Vanished_ (2020)




Sadly, Ken Maynard was genuinely abusive towards Tarzan, as well as other horses and performers. While cinema has always been rightfully fascinated with the impressive qualities of animals, early productions often involved abuse of their animal performers, even after animal rights activists helped close many of the industry's loopholes. This story is dedicated to the animals who suffered unseen as a result of negligence and greed.


End file.
